Book Review: Saving Truth by Abdu Murray

We live in a post-truth world and the results have been disastrous. Everything is complicated and confusing. Not only are we confused about the nature of God, we are confused about the nature of ourselves. Amidst all the confusion, there are still people who want answers. There are people who want to know the truth. These people can find no better guide than Abdu Murray. If I could describe Saving Truth in one word it would be “clarity”. Murray does a fantastic job pointing out the errors of our post-truth world while directing our gaze to a clear vision of the truth. He uses his legal skills to point out uses and abuses of particular words. He uses his experience as a Ravi Zacharias International Ministries traveling speaker to illustrate his points with fascinating conversations he has had all over the world. And he displays thorough research in his references to current and historical works from all sides of the issues. After describing the confused state of our culture, Murray seeks to bring clarity to the topics of freedom, human dignity, sexuality, the relationship of science and faith, and religious pluralism. I will briefly share some of his thoughts about these topics.

Freedom

The chapters on freedom are full of fascinating ideas that are sure to get people thinking. We live in a culture that is obsessed with freedom, but what if we don’t even understand what freedom is? Murray argues that we have confused freedom with autonomy. Autonomy is freedom in its negative sense. It is freedom from constraint. True freedom is a positive freedom. It is a freedom that can create beauty, excellence, and goodness. In order to be clear on the difference between autonomy and positive freedom, imagine a piano. A toddler can approach the piano and exercise their autonomy by banging the keys however they wish. However, a well-trained pianist can approach the piano able to play any song they desire. The toddler, while “free” to mash keys, lacks the true freedom of the trained pianist. With this concept in mind, Murray makes a powerful point that our culture thinks it has found freedom, but in reality, they are mashing the keys of society and creating lives full of dissonance. In order to find true freedom, we need to know the truth. Freedom without truth is not freedom. We cannot create beauty unless we know what beauty is. We cannot find meaning unless we know our ultimate meaning. We cannot live fulfilling lives unless we know how our lives were meant to be lived. In order to know true freedom, we need to know what is true.

Human Dignity

We live in a polarized age—more than that, a Hitlerized age. Consider Murray’s words, “Our social and political commentaries have gone from being polarized to Hitlerized as we indulgently use the word hate to describe anyone who doesn’t agree with our views.” Even as the world becomes more connected, it is becoming more tribal. We are showing less respect and common decency towards our fellow man because we’ve lost our dignity as human beings. From the sciences to the courts, humans are being understood as complicated machines more than sacred beings. By making ourselves gods, we can no longer properly see the dignity of being human. Murray points out that while many claim to follow the ultimate ethic of The Golden Rule, they misunderstand it. It is most commonly quoted in a defensive way like “Don’t do to others what you don’t want to be done to you.” This formulation keeps self at the center and basically serves as a reminder not to be evil to others. However, Jesus said things in a positive way, “Do unto others as you would want to be done unto you.” While the difference in wording is slight, the implications are massive. The ethic of Jesus is to treat others with the utmost respect, kindness, and dignity. Even while Jesus was being tortured and murdered, he was saving his persecutors. He was saving his fellow man.

Sexuality

Many excellent books have been addressing the confusion around sexuality, but Murray engages the topic in a brief, yet profound way. One point Murray draws out is that our culture is putting a misguided emphasis on sexuality and gender as defining one’s identity. While the Bible does address the issue of homosexuality in a clear way, there really is not much written on the topic. Murray quotes Sam Allberry saying, “At the very least this shows us that the Bible is not fixated on homosexuality. It is not what the Bible is ‘about.’” The point is, homosexuality is not supposed to be a primary characterization of identity. The gospel shows us that mankind is so much more than their sexuality. Having said that, Murray does uphold the importance of a Biblical view of sexuality. He makes an important case that God does not arbitrarily prohibit certain sexual acts. Rather, having created mankind, God makes it very clear how mankind was designed to live and act. The Biblical sexual ethic then serves to protect mankind for their own joy and fulfillment.

Science and Faith

One of the greatest hindrances to faith is the belief that faith and science are opposed. While many religions may be anti-science, Christianity is not one of them. Murray shows how historically Christianity has encouraged and inspired scientific inquiry all the way from the inception of modern science to the current day. He argues that the Biblical understanding of faith has nothing to do with “blind faith”. Rather it is a trust in a person (namely Jesus) to follow through on his promises. That trust in no way needs to be blind. Faith can and should be informed by evidence. The Christian faith, in particular, has found much justification through scientific inquiry.

Religious Pluralism

Murray wasn’t always a Christian. In fact, at the time of writing, Murray had lived most of his life as a devout Muslim. His thoughts on comparative religions are far from superficial. He navigates the vast waters of religion with both thorough research and deep personal interest. He addresses the irony of the current state of tolerance. It is commonly those who are championing “tolerance” who are actually displaying the greatest degrees of intolerance. Speaking of the various belief systems, Murray says, “To ignore our differences is to disrespect each other.” So many are on a short-sighted quest to find all the commonalities between religions and try to present them all as basically being the same. However, this superficial take on world religions actually demeans them by refusing to properly understand their fundamental beliefs. Murray points out that there is one main, fundamental commonality between the various religions, that something is wrong with the world. However, among all the different ways that religions try to solve the problems of the world, one belief system is truly novel. While all religions require humans to do something in order to reach some definition of “salvation” it is only in Christianity that salvation is freely given to mankind.

Recommendation

Saving Truth is a short book that is both easy to read and yet profound in its content. Deep down all people want the truth. Abdu Murray does a fantastic job showing that ultimate truth can be known both intellectually and relationally through Jesus Christ. If you’d like to purchase the book and support Apologetics315 at the same time, please purchase the book using this link.